If were to go to a dealer with my own money and put weed or heroine or whatever into my own body, that's totally my business. I'm not harming anyone, so society can really just deal with it. When the government tells me I can't, they're overstepping their limits. Matter fact, it's not even consistant. You can quote stats all day about which is worse between the illegal substances and the legal ones, but at the end of the day people are allowed to put some dangerous things in their body, but not others. It's not logical. We don't ban alcohol because people can become alcoholics, we cant ban heroine because someone might turn into an addict.

As for your other point, the people you see in addict care were not able to handle it. Too bad for them really. But for those that can handle drugs without winding up in rehab, having it illegal for everyone is ridiculous. "This group of people are fucking up so I'm taking the drugs away from everyone". Pretty non-sensical.

Bashfluff:You missed the point entirely. My point is that there are plenty of knowingly dangerous substances we ingest, or smoke, or let our kids ingest. There are plenty of things we do that fuck us over. But we should have the right to do them. It's the most basic right of all--the right to our own bodies.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so that argument doesn't fly.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that drugs cause damage mostly to society, and to other people than the user. To name an example, some 600 systematic offenders, 90% of them drug addicts, caused more than two-thirds of all crime in the city of Amsterdam before the Netherlands started locking them up for two years in special drug addict prisons.

That means that 540 drug users, were perpetrating more crime than the 1.208.000 other inhabitants of the city together.

That's what drugs do.

Do you have sources for those numbers?

Not doubting you, but if there are respectable sources that confirm that, it's pretty damning for the pro-legalization side.

Bashfluff:You missed the point entirely. My point is that there are plenty of knowingly dangerous substances we ingest, or smoke, or let our kids ingest. There are plenty of things we do that fuck us over. But we should have the right to do them. It's the most basic right of all--the right to our own bodies.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so that argument doesn't fly.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that drugs cause damage mostly to society, and to other people than the user. To name an example, some 600 systematic offenders, 90% of them drug addicts, caused more than two-thirds of all crime in the city of Amsterdam before the Netherlands started locking them up for two years in special drug addict prisons.

That means that 540 drug users, were perpetrating more crime than the 1.208.000 other inhabitants of the city together.

That's what drugs do.

Do you have sources for those numbers?

Not doubting you, but if there are respectable sources that confirm that, it's pretty damning for the pro-legalization side.

Not if the criminal behavior was a result of the drugs being illegal. Also, your view ignores other avenues for dealing with drug addiction such as treating it as a medical issue.

Kopikatsu:Do you have sources for those numbers?Not doubting you, but if there are respectable sources that confirm that, it's pretty damning for the pro-legalization side.

I do, most of it is in Dutch however. The English reports are summaries at best. Amsterdam's evaluation of the 'systematic offender measure' as it's called in a rough translation. Quoted earlier in the discussion.

The WODC observes the same phenomena. The WODC is the criminological analysis and research group of the Dutch government. As for the failure of the marijuana legalisation, they wrote an entire study on it called 'the world behind the growing of marijuana. The 5th chapter of the report deals with the violence asociated with the semi-legal marijuana growth. Among other things they rip eachother off using excessive violence, sometimes pot dealers use violence against growers who have lost their crop to a police raid and are then supposed to cover the losses of the dealer, and often force people under threat of violence to grow pot for them.

Translation of one case they mentioned on page 97:

Respondent 15: 'I know a woman who lives on benefits, who's afraid of society and everyone. A socially weaker person. Turks came in there and said "you've got nothing to say, I am taking your attic and will start growing there". A woman like that is in a weakened state and doesn't know how society is and is terribly afraid of talking, or afraid of people'.

It's been documented rather extensively through 2002-2007, roughly just before the policy shift to undo the legalisation and restrict the drug trade best as possible. That shift was based on evaluation of the previous policy of tolerating the drug trade mostly.

But they're bad people, there's no way around the conclusion. It happened to a friend of mine as well. I know him from the gym. One day three guys just broke through his front door and demanded pot. Apparently they thought there was a pot farm in the house. The previous tenant had indeed been evicted for growing pot. Since he couldn't give them anything they struck him over the head with a crowbar twice, tied him up and left. He suffered a concussion and still has a scar on his head, fortunately underneath his hair. He had to move away from that house in the end.

Such things almost never happen even with other types of drug criminals. It got so openly that I once had a piece of paper put through the letterbox, business card-like, with a depiction of a marijuana plant and a cell phone number on it. That's how openly drug criminals operate thanks to the failed attempts at legalisation.

Blablahb:Two mistakes there. One, drug abuse is not ingrained in society. Many drugs have existed for only a few years. GHB, the rapedrug, for instance has only been around since 2006, whereas alcohol has existed for millennia. And the ban is because people are harmed by drugs, society is harmed by drugs, and they have no positive effects. That's why it's prohibited.

I made no mistakes, you are making mistakes with your understanding of English.Drug abuse and recreational drugs are not the same thing. Cannabis has been around even longer than alcohol. Opiates and cocaine have been around for hundreds of years. You keep saying "society is harmed by drugs" but so far you have only proved that society is harmed by prohibition.

Blablahb:That's rubbish. You can both ban drugs and have drug education. You're using a false dilemma. Also, thousands of addicts, huge costs and organised crime say that drugs can't be used responsibly. Unless you can refute the existance of those downsides, responsible drug use is impossible.

You're ignoring reality. To dissuade people from using drugs active lies are told about them. Which is even worse than not educating people. For example, it's commonly taught that cannabis will make you paranoid or schizophrenic when there is no conclusive scientific evidence to indicate that is the case. There have been a few cases where cannabis has aggravated existing mental health issues (or if there is a family history of mental health issues, however seen as we've established that taking any unprescribed drug is stupid in that situation, there is not a lot to discuss here) but that is not what is taught in classrooms, on public service announcements, etc.The same goes for cancer risk, I've seen it taught in classrooms that "cannabis is 10 times more carcinogenic than tobacco." Which is completely and utterly false. Yet it's still being taught to our kids.

There are many more alcoholics than there are drug addicts. They cost the government huge sums in welfare, healthcare etc. Are you saying alcohol cannot be used responsibly? What about caffeine, the most popular drug in the world today, can that not be used responsibly?You can either take the opinion that all recreational drugs (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine etc.) should be prohibited. Or the opinion that they should all (at the very least cannabis and MDMA) be legal, anything else is hypocritical.

Blablahb:Don't make the mistake of being predictable and quoting those bullshit statistics that alcohol is supposely worse. Those numbers compare several populations that can't be compared to eachother, and they don't account for per-use damage.

If you think there is any doubt that alcohol is more destructive and addictive than cannabis or MDMA (there are more but those are my two examples) then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific process and how to read and assess scientific studies.It's as simple as that, all the legitimate scientific evidence is against you and saying "I don't like it so I don't believe it" is just another case of willful ignorance.

Blablahb:That didn't come up in the discussion so don't get all high and mighty. I'm quite aware of it, and disagree with the idea of undoing the pass decision. Because the drug tourism needs to be stopped. And if that means a few organised crime bosses get less income and sad potheads need to fill out a form before they can get high, so be it.

Yes it did, you said that "soon the drug tourists will stop coming" or something along those lines, when obviously they wont because the law no longer stands.Do you know what would make crime bosses get even less income? If people could grow their own cannabis, cuts out all crime bosses/syndicates all together.

Blablahb:I never even mentioned that and have no idea why you bring it up. I was observing that drugs create a scene around them of hardcore organised crime, that use extreme violence not seen elsewhere. That's why drugs need to be fought, because you're also preventing organised crime with it. I used this shooting as an example, while rival marijuana dealers emptied ak47s on the house of a marijuana dealer, killing his 12 year old son.

It was an example of how such crime is heard of.Let me ask, how else does a black market solve it's disputes besides violent crime? There are no other ways. How many legitimate markets solve their disputes with violent crime? None.We've established that the demand for recreational drugs cannot be stemmed. So you can only blame prohibition for how the market is today.

Blablahb:Such extreme violence is unheard normally speaking. It's only because of drugs that it happens.

I gave you cold hard numbers to prove this is incorrect. If you are still in denial it's another case of willful ignorance.

Blablahb:Also you're wrong in your claim that it only occurs because of drugs being illegal. There is not a single reason to suspect organised crime will disappear from the drug trade after the mistake of legalisation has been made. Not only that, but the Dutch experience shows it to be untrue. Pot is legal, yet pot dealer still are organised crime and are extremely violent.

The Dutch example is a poor one, We've already established why, I wont repeat myself for you.And there is no reason to think that organised crime would spontaneously disappear. But with the right influence it would decrease up until the point that it's negligible.You undercut the illegal drug market, you continue (or even increase) your efforts to investigate and prosecute illegal dealers. You make it non-profitable to deal drugs illegally.None of which the Dutch government did.

Links on the right take you to the document in more detail. Don't accuse people if you're wrong. There's a huge crime rate due to drug users. For Amsterdam alone, some 540 drug users perpetrate about two-thirds of all crime, meaning that 540 people perpetrate more crime than 1,2 million other inhabitants. That's how high crime among drug users is. Care to calculate how overrepresented it makes those drug users in crime rate per capita?

And as they conclude in that document, locking up drug users in a specialised prison for two years for even the most minor of crimes, is a succesfull approach, because it allows forcible detoxing and adressing other problems of drug users.

Yeah I'm going to need to see some scientific evidence, written in English.In any case you have moved your goal posts. You were saying that most drug users were criminals, now you are saying that most criminals are drug users (due to your fundamental misunderstanding of science I can see why you might think they mean the same thing). Yes a decent percentage of people in jail in the US committed their crime to get money for drugs. But the vast majority of of murderers are men, does that mean we should make it illegal to have a penis?The fact that many prisoners are drug users is a result of poverty and prohibition. Not of the drug use itself. The drug use is at most, a catalyst.If you doubt that ask yourself how many people are in jail for stealing to afford their tobacco, or alcohol habbits.

Leadfinger:Not if the criminal behavior was a result of the drugs being illegal..

We should legalise robbery and rape, that way our crime rates would plummet! /nonserious

Strawman much? I suppose you must think alcohol should still be illegal.

C'mon, saying stuff like "drug crime only exists because drugs are illegal" is a complete tautology, hence my tongue in cheek response. Sure, there are arguments to be made for legalising or regulating some (or possibly all) drugs, but this (the previously paraphrased sentiment) is a circular argument.

Leadfinger:Strawman much? I suppose you must think alcohol should still be illegal.

It's not a strawman. You argued that drug crime is only a crime because it's been made a crime. Well now, rape is only a crime because it's been made a crime too, otherwise it would be legal. Not just that, but the apt ridiculing of your point continues because if we legalised rape and sexual assault, there's no doubt almost all sex crime would disappear, just like most drug crime would disappear if you legalised running a drug cartel.

But much like with rape, drug crime was made a crime because of the negative effects it has on victims and society as a whole, so you were wrong in the first place.

Smeatza:I made no mistakes, you are making mistakes with your understanding of English.Drug abuse and recreational drugs are not the same thing. Cannabis has been around even longer than alcohol. Opiates and cocaine have been around for hundreds of years. You keep saying "society is harmed by drugs" but so far you have only proved that society is harmed by prohibition.

You're seriously denying there are problems because of drugs? Now I'm thinking you're just pretending ignorance. There's no way that we're from the same planet and you've managed to miss the problems caused by drugs.

Smeatza:You're ignoring reality. To dissuade people from using drugs active lies are told about them. Which is even worse than not educating people. For example, it's commonly taught that cannabis will make you paranoid or schizophrenic when there is no conclusive scientific evidence to indicate that is the case.

That evidence is only lacking if you stick your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes and go "nanana can't hear you".

"Three major studies followed large numbers of people over several years, and showed that those people who use cannabis have a higher than average risk of developing schizophrenia. If you start smoking it before the age of 15, you are 4 times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder by the time you are 26. They found no evidence of self-medication. It seemed that, the more cannabis someone used, the more likely they were to develop symptoms."http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/expertadvice/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

The mistake you make is to dismiss it based on one or two small incomplete studies that concluded that that cannabis seems to cause mental illness in people with a family history and thus a possible predisposition for it. However it's still the trigger, and still the cause. Without drug abuse, those people wouldn't have lost it.

Notice how the number of documented points for me vs unsupported claims for you is now 3 already in just one post?

No shit? Who'd have expected that a group which is a thousand times more numerous would create more cases?

Now the number of addicts per user, alright? Because that's the only comparable number. Also you're ignoring the fact that moderate alcohol use without risk of medical problems is possible, and drug use without risk of medical problems is impossible.

Smeatza:If you think there is any doubt that alcohol is more destructive and addictive than cannabis or MDMA (there are more but those are my two examples) then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific process and how to read and assess scientific studies.It's as simple as that, all the legitimate scientific evidence is against you and saying "I don't like it so I don't believe it" is just another case of willful ignorance.

Alright, so show us all that evidence instead of just making more and more empty claims while I'm levelling them one by one?

Don't make the mistake of using uncomparable data. Only data that have been compensated to be per-use and per-user can be compared. To my knowledge no such data exists.

Smeatza:Yes it did, you said that "soon the drug tourists will stop coming" or something along those lines, when obviously they wont because the law no longer stands.

So you're arguing that cancelling measures that stop drug tourists, stop drug tourists? It doesn't work like unfortunatelly.

Also it's time for you to stop stubbornly repeating the already refuted claim that legalisation will undercut organised crime. The failed Dutch experiment has proven this isn't true, and there's no reason to suspect it would work like you claim in the first place.

Smeatza:Let me ask, how else does a black market solve it's disputes besides violent crime? There are no other ways. How many legitimate markets solve their disputes with violent crime? None.

Uhm, actually quite a few. Taxi companies for instance have been known to engage in mafia-like practises to settle disputes and violence is so common that taxi stops have a police officer permanently stationed at them, and are often equippped with boom barriers so offenders can't flee. Biker gangs, legal in themselves, are another fine example of a violent bunch that's not illegal by itself. Biker gangs have been legal for a while too, yet has this legalisation made them lose their criminal tendencies? No. Neither will the drug trade.

Once a branch of industry is accustomed to violence, it's extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of.

Smeatza:Yeah I'm going to need to see some scientific evidence, written in English.

That's downright hypocritical, as you're yet to provide the first-ever source for your claims. Also please read my previous posts. You've clearly misunderstood the causal relationship between drug use and crime which I described earlier.

Leadfinger:Strawman much? I suppose you must think alcohol should still be illegal.

It's not a strawman. You argued that drug crime is only a crime because it's been made a crime. Well now, rape is only a crime because it's been made a crime too, otherwise it would be legal. Not just that, but the apt ridiculing of your point continues because if we legalised rape and sexual assault, there's no doubt almost all sex crime would disappear, just like most drug crime would disappear if you legalised running a drug cartel.

But much like with rape, drug crime was made a crime because of the negative effects it has on victims and society as a whole, so you were wrong in the first place.

What makes your point a strawman is that rape and sexual assault have victims, unlike taking drugs, which is a crime without a victim. BTW, do you think alcohol should still be illegal. Remember, alcohol was also outlawed because of the harm caused to the user and to society?

Bashfluff:You missed the point entirely. My point is that there are plenty of knowingly dangerous substances we ingest, or smoke, or let our kids ingest. There are plenty of things we do that fuck us over. But we should have the right to do them. It's the most basic right of all--the right to our own bodies.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so that argument doesn't fly.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that drugs cause damage mostly to society, and to other people than the user. To name an example, some 600 systematic offenders, 90% of them drug addicts, caused more than two-thirds of all crime in the city of Amsterdam before the Netherlands started locking them up for two years in special drug addict prisons.

That means that 540 drug users, were perpetrating more crime than the 1.208.000 other inhabitants of the city together.

That's what drugs do.

Do you have sources for those numbers?

Not doubting you, but if there are respectable sources that confirm that, it's pretty damning for the pro-legalization side.

Am i missing something here? Surely those figures would only be damning if those 600 drug users were the only drug users in the city? If we say ~1% (very lowball estimate) of the population can be classified as "drug users" (yeh it's vague, but that seems to be the metric we're going with here), with this given population that means there's 12080 in total, that means that what, 5% of drug users are committing 2/3rds of all crime in the entire city. I guess some of the remaining 95% "drug users" could be contributing in part to the remaining 1/3rd of crime, but that's still a good 90% of drug users who aren't causing any problems whatsoever to anyone other than themselves, no?

Should we really be punishing the 90% because of the 10%?

I don't really understand whats going on with those figures though to be honest, they're incredibly vague, "drug user" could mean anything, and i have no idea whether this "crime" that we're talking about actually includes the drug offences themselves.

We should legalise robbery and rape, that way our crime rates would plummet! /nonserious

Strawman much? I suppose you must think alcohol should still be illegal.

C'mon, saying stuff like "drug crime only exists because drugs are illegal" is a complete tautology, hence my tongue in cheek response. Sure, there are arguments to be made for legalising or regulating some (or possibly all) drugs, but this (the previously paraphrased sentiment) is a circular argument.

You're technically perfectly correct of course, but i think you're purposely misinterpreting the actual point of the (admittedly badly-phrased) statement. Arbitrarily making some random completely harmless thing illegal, then pointing at the people who continue using said thing and saying "look! i told you we were right to criminilize that thing! Every single person using it is a CRIMINAL!" would be a nonsensical argument in favour of the initial criminilization of the thing. Obviously the drug argument is a whole load more complicated than a random thing analogy, but i hope my point came across.

That 90% of drug users don't cause that kind of problems is just an assumption. What I see happening a lot of the time is that people have severe problems for years before they end up a systematic offender to sustain their habit. For instance prostitution, or having (stolen) cars registered to their name in exchange for money.

Obviously before that they've burned through their savings and have been borrowing from their family or friends, or have started dealing drugs themselves. I've thrown people out who were making deals about sex for drugs in the waiting area right under my nose. It was really sad to watch really.

What's striking is the more the users insist there's no problem, the bigger the problem is. People insist GHB and Rohypnol are harmless, yet overdoses and rape are on the rise hugely. People claim poker isn't gambling, people addicted to gambling in the form of poker are flooding addict care right now. People claim marijuana is harmless, yet I see addicts as young as 13 years old, and we only get cases that are so addicted they get directed to us, meaning he must've started at 11 or 12. Whereas most addicts are 30+

By the way what I quoted about Amsterdam was about systematic offenders, meaning people who have been arrested more than ten times in the previous five years. That's a group of 600 people in Amsterdam (in 2007), 90% of whom were drug addicts. Not to say the remaining 10% are drug-free or didn't use to be addicts, just that 90% of the people who caused more than two-thirds of all crime in the city were drug addicts.

Judging by how often our clients get arrested I'd guess that covers a significant part of the total number of drug users in the city.

Not just that, but one of the main evaluation points in the study was that the Measure for Systematic Offenders (which had been just introduced then) was better, because those people were off the streets and in prison for two years, and mandatory cooperation to rehab programs prevented them from resuming their crime spree once released. The trick was they committed many relatively minor offenses, so they never stayed locked up for long.

Fines don't work on them, community service rarely does if they even show up, and prison is just a nice break from living rough. So they needed to be locked up for a long time with mandatory rehab programs, to really adress their drug problem.

The relevance of that, is that because of drug use, more than half the entirety of all crime is perpetrated. Meaning vica versa that if you legalised drugs and skyrocketed the number of addicts because of that, you could expect crime to double or triple as well.

So drug legalisation is a bad idea, especially because other than the convenience of drug users, there's no arguments to be found in favour.

1. So drug legalisation is a bad idea, especially because other than the convenience of drug users, there's no arguments to be found in favour.

There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty. But of course, the, "We are allowed to put everything else--pretty much--into our own bodies, so why not this?" is a pretty compelling one.

Bashfluff:There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty.

Except there's no right to use drugs of any kind, let alone that such a thing surpasses the state's role as guardian of public health and safety.

Crying "liberty!" when wanting to use drugs legally with disregard of the consequences is just a fallacy. You can apply the same argument to just about every crime: "The evil patronising government is curtailing my sexual freedom! I'm not even allowed to bang any woman whether she wants to or not, oppression!".

Bashfluff:There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty.

Except there's no right to use drugs of any kind, let alone that such a thing surpasses the state's role as guardian of public health and safety.

Crying "liberty!" when wanting to use drugs legally with disregard of the consequences is just a fallacy. You can apply the same argument to just about every crime: "The evil patronising government is curtailing my sexual freedom! I'm not even allowed to bang any woman whether she wants to or not, oppression!".

Ok im back, i havent read all the others posts but to this since its the most recent ive got to say the following.You obviously dont believe in that right and thats fine but me and plenty of others do, and not just drug users, academics, philosophers, smart people. To say a right doesnt exist because you dont agree with it is pretty authoritarian. To stalin the right to free speech didnt exist, thats not to say it shouldnt. Its a tyranny of the majority.

Getting high is nothing at all like rape, rape is an act of violence commited on another human being causing lasting damage

You can say doing drugs is funding violent criminals, and that is where the consequences of drug use effect others but this is only the case because of prohibition meaning that it is a very lucrative market for someone who doesnt follow the law. Lucrative enough to kill over. If they were legal this would not be the case.

I dont think the government should be concerned with my health, leave that to the doctors, not the politicians. In my opinion politicians are there to safeguard rights and provide services. If this WAS the case then why not make obesity or alcohol illegal? because it shows a fucking reckless disregard for personal freedom. Its fine for a government to encourage healthy living, but cmon I am not the governments property.

Just out of interest do you think its a right to be able to take your own life? Its the same principle, your body your choice.

And who is saying that anyone disregarding the consequences of drug use? Obviously if you choose to use drugs you deal with the consequences, how could you not?The equivalent of what you just said about rape would be saying since euthanasia is legal murder should be legal when there is a clear difference. Euthanasia (or suicide, not sure euthanasia is the right term) effects you and you only whereas murder doesnt.

Your left wing enough to assume you know whats best for society but not enough to let people choose.

Bashfluff:There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty.

Except there's no right to use drugs of any kind, let alone that such a thing surpasses the state's role as guardian of public health and safety.

Crying "liberty!" when wanting to use drugs legally with disregard of the consequences is just a fallacy. You can apply the same argument to just about every crime: "The evil patronising government is curtailing my sexual freedom! I'm not even allowed to bang any woman whether she wants to or not, oppression!".

There's the right over my own body. The right to put whatever I want to put into it into it. It's the most basic and essential right anyone can have. You're using that fallacy by equating that with violent, sexual crime.

That 90% of drug users don't cause that kind of problems is just an assumption. What I see happening a lot of the time is that people have severe problems for years before they end up a systematic offender to sustain their habit. For instance prostitution, or having (stolen) cars registered to their name in exchange for money.

Obviously before that they've burned through their savings and have been borrowing from their family or friends, or have started dealing drugs themselves. I've thrown people out who were making deals about sex for drugs in the waiting area right under my nose. It was really sad to watch really.

What's striking is the more the users insist there's no problem, the bigger the problem is. People insist GHB and Rohypnol are harmless, yet overdoses and rape are on the rise hugely. People claim poker isn't gambling, people addicted to gambling in the form of poker are flooding addict care right now. People claim marijuana is harmless, yet I see addicts as young as 13 years old, and we only get cases that are so addicted they get directed to us, meaning he must've started at 11 or 12. Whereas most addicts are 30+

By the way what I quoted about Amsterdam was about systematic offenders, meaning people who have been arrested more than ten times in the previous five years. That's a group of 600 people in Amsterdam (in 2007), 90% of whom were drug addicts. Not to say the remaining 10% are drug-free or didn't use to be addicts, just that 90% of the people who caused more than two-thirds of all crime in the city were drug addicts.

Judging by how often our clients get arrested I'd guess that covers a significant part of the total number of drug users in the city.

Not just that, but one of the main evaluation points in the study was that the Measure for Systematic Offenders (which had been just introduced then) was better, because those people were off the streets and in prison for two years, and mandatory cooperation to rehab programs prevented them from resuming their crime spree once released. The trick was they committed many relatively minor offenses, so they never stayed locked up for long.

Fines don't work on them, community service rarely does if they even show up, and prison is just a nice break from living rough. So they needed to be locked up for a long time with mandatory rehab programs, to really adress their drug problem.

The relevance of that, is that because of drug use, more than half the entirety of all crime is perpetrated. Meaning vica versa that if you legalised drugs and skyrocketed the number of addicts because of that, you could expect crime to double or triple as well.

So drug legalisation is a bad idea, especially because other than the convenience of drug users, there's no arguments to be found in favour.

Good to see in typical Blablah fashion you've taken one line out of my entire post to reply too and completely ignored the rest of it. All you've done is point out what terrible people the addicts that come to your addiction clinic are though. You know as well as the rest of us that anecdotes aren't sufficient, and aside from the 600 drug users, 2/3rds of crime figures you've given (which i've taken as truth for the sake of argument), which as i've pointed out doesn't really mean anything, anecdotes are all you've given us, with a little bit of conjecture thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, i look at it like this, a list of pro's and cons. Whichever way you look at it there are actually some very good arguments in favour of legislation. Whether those arguments outweigh the potential negatives is where the actual debate comes in.

Good arguments in favour of legalisation off the top of my head (with some criticisms of those points): (+) No more designer drug/research chemical problems. The tried and true drugs will always be the most popular, emergency services know exactly how to deal with the traditional drugs, contraindications, LD50/LD100's, effective treatments etc.(-) Not really any criticisms of this, it's undeniably true. There's a huge market for legal highs, new drugs are being created every day. Most of them are just as dangerous if not more so as the drugs they're mimicking. GHB for example became widely used as a legal alternative. It's still widely available in the form of GBL, which remains legal after GHB was scheduled in most countries.

(+) Well regulated supply, no more dangerous cuts, makes for easier, safer, more accurate dosing, meaning fewer OD's.(-) Can't think of any points against this really. Cuts are rarely healthy, and the huge variances in purity of certain drugs is a major factor for OD's.

(+) Cheaper drugs, meaning addiction is no longer quite so cripplingly expensive, less crime related to addiction. (-) Could potentially encourage people to become addicted if the costs don't seem so huge. Personally i wouldn't say this is particularly relevant as cost is rarely a consideration when someone develops an addiction. People start taking certain drugs under the assumption that they won't be taking them often so the costs won't matter so much, and by the time dependence has kicked in avoiding WD's is far more important to you than money.

(+) More regulated supply, provides the government with the ability to influence the manner in which drugs are sold, deny criminal organisations complete control over the drug trade. (BEFORE YOU REPLY TO THIS WITH HOW THE NEDERLANDS SHOW THIS FAILED, PLEASE REMEMBER MARIJUANA PRODUCTION IS STILL ILLEGAL IN HOLLAND. I've capped this because you've been told this multiple times in the past yet you always seem to forget by the time the next drug thread rolls around, caps so you can't just ignore this like you do with every other inconvenient truth).(-) Trusting capitalistic, profit-driven organisations with dangerous products is a mugs game.

(+) Less prison overcrowding.(-) More drug-users on the streets.... i guess? Not really a problem for me, but others may disagree.

(+) Less police time spent dealing with drug trafficking, production and petty possession, freeing up resources.(-) I honestly can't think of nay argument to be made against this point.

(+) Tax.(-) Nor this, money is good. You could say the added taxes would negate the costs saved through legal production, leading customers to return to buying from criminals. I call bullshit on this, because i can buy 50 grams of tobacco for £12 and half of that is tax. 3.5 grams of marijuana costs me £25 at the very least. Is the same with drugs like prescribed opiates compared with heroin. This plus the fact that buying from a shop/pharmacy is far more convenient than buying from a dealer 90% of the time, and people do generally prefer not breaking the law if they don't have to.

Arguments against:

(-) Potentially more users, more addicts, more drug related crime, more OD's and more emergency services time spent on drug related problems.(+) The idea that drug use would increase drastically is not based on anything other than assumption. The closest two case examples of the reality of what would happen are the Nederlands and Portugal. Both countries have experienced an overall drop in drug use (of the drugs targeted by the legislation) and have fewer users compared to other countries with similar cultures. Neither are particularly good examples however as the former have only decriminized the sale of Cannabis, leaving the production illegal and have similar legislation to the rest of the world on other drugs, and the latter have only decriminalization drug possession, not sale or production.

The way i see it, there's a good number of arguments to made in favour of legalization, and not many of them are refutable, debatable points either. I can only really think of one major downside which happens to be extremely debatable.

That's all i'm going to say. Feel free to find one sentence in all that text that you can argue with and completely ignore the rest, i know you will.

Also just btw, ketamine is not a common cut for coke at all. The effects of the drugs are widely different, ketamine is popular enough to sell itself, and it's not particularly cheap either. It wouldn't make sense to cut coke with ket, it would be like cheap sausage manufacturers cutting their sausages with caviar to cut down on meat costs, everyones going to notice the taste and you aren't saving any money by doing it because caviar ain't cheap and you could have just sold the caviar on its own. I don't know why i feel compelled to point this out among the rest of the wrong stuff you've said, it's just one of those little things that show the person you're talking with doesn't really have much of a clue.

Indonesia government sickens me. You can kill a one time drug mule, but acts of violence in the name of religion gets ignored. It sickens me even more that they would use someone from the west as a 15 century like example of what happens when you break a rule. So I am going to do what other people have always done, and cross that place off of places I would think to go for a vacation. I doubt there is anything worthwhile to do over there. I mean of pretty against drugs, but that person was not even a drug dealer. Just a dumb person who made a mistake. I doubt you even gain much in doing it.

Shpongled:All you've done is point out what terrible people the addicts that come to your addiction clinic are though.

Exactly. And because we get anyone who uses drugs for a while, they're a correct representation of drug users as a whole. For certain the existance of them and their problems absolutely destroys any chance to argue that drugs are harmless and should be legalised.

To argue that, someone would need to ignore all those thousands of people I've just been describing, as well as about half of all crime in their country if the statistics from Amsterdam are anything to go on. (and you've not said anything to indicate otherwise)

Shpongled:(+) No more designer drug/research chemical problems. The tried and true drugs will always be the most popular, emergency services know exactly how to deal with the traditional drugs, contraindications, LD50/LD100's, effective treatments etc.

There's no reason to assume drug problems will magically vanish if one would make the mistake of legalising them. Drug legalisation doesn't increase the quality of healthcare either, and the medical consequences of drug usage are already known, so this argument is totally incorrect.

That's just an assumption. There's no reason to suspect drug dealers will care any more than they do now if there's regulations. Your argument is self-defeating: if legalisation fixes it, how come there were drug problems in the first place that lead to them being banned?

Plus that the number of addicts, and thus the number of overdoses increases when something becomes more easily available, so this argument of yours is also demonstrably untrue.

No, they'd just use even more and cause the same amount of problems. Also it ignores the personal losses of people who become the victims of your legalisation idea, and the healthcare expenses it incurs.

Shpongled:(+) More regulated supply, provides the government with the ability to influence the manner in which drugs are sold, deny criminal organisations complete control over the drug trade.

This has already been tried, and it failed miserably. Also there's no reason to assume organised crime won't dominate a legal drug trade.

This has been said at least five times already. Why are you ignoring it?

Shpongled:(+) The idea that drug use would increase drastically is not based on anything other than assumption. The closest two case examples of the reality of what would happen are the Nederlands and Portugal. Both countries have experienced an overall drop in drug use

That's not due to legalisation, but due to crime fighting and drug education. It has also been said before at least twice, so it's rather distastefull that you flame me like that, and then go repeating already refuting claims yourself.

The rest of the arguments you claimed aren't a problem at all. Drug dealers belong in prison, so do drug addicts. Shielding society from people like that is what police and prisons are for in the first place. If anything it's an argument against legalisation, because police time and prison space being spent on drug criminals mean that the illegal status of drugs is having the desired effect.

Shpongled:Also just btw, ketamine is not a common cut for coke at all. The effects of the drugs are widely different, ketamine is popular enough to sell itself, and it's not particularly cheap either.

You say that like it's something I didn't already know for years, why? I am however seeing drug tests coming back for cocaine cut with ketamine, and the combination is a killer. If someone takes that, they go to hospital, simple as that.

That's just one of the many reasons why it is impossible to responsibly use cocaine, and that point still stands rock-solid, no matter how many personal insults you want to fling at it.

Note how I also refuted every single point you made, while you continue to just ignore my arguments.

Bashfluff:There's the right over my own body. The right to put whatever I want to put into it into it. It's the most basic and essential right anyone can have. You're using that fallacy by equating that with violent, sexual crime.

What does causing massive healthcare bills and huge amounts of crime (consequences of drug abuse) have to do with the integrity of the own body?

Except there's no right to use drugs of any kind, let alone that such a thing surpasses the state's role as guardian of public health and safety.

Shpongled:All you've done is point out what terrible people the addicts that come to your addiction clinic are though.

Exactly. And because we get anyone who uses drugs for a while, they're a correct representation of drug users as a whole. For certain the existance of them and their problems absolutely destroys any chance to argue that drugs are harmless and should be legalised.

Drug users at an addiction clinic are about as representative of drug users as a whole as people in a prison are representative of humans as a whole. By very definition you're dealing with the worst of the worst. Obviously you don't see drug-users without addiction problems at an addiction clinic. Just because you don't see them there doesn't mean they don't exist. Either way you've basing your argument on anecdote.

To argue that, someone would need to ignore all those thousands of people I've just been describing, as well as about half of all crime in their country if the statistics from Amsterdam are anything to go on. (and you've not said anything to indicate otherwise)

Yes, we've been through this. 600 drug-users committing 2/3rds of the crime. This is only damning when you refuse to consider the fact that there are far more than 600 drug-users in the city, meaning there are a huge number of drug-users that aren't committing crime.

Ignore this again please. It gives your posts credit.

Shpongled:(+) No more designer drug/research chemical problems. The tried and true drugs will always be the most popular, emergency services know exactly how to deal with the traditional drugs, contraindications, LD50/LD100's, effective treatments etc.

There's no reason to assume drug problems will magically vanish if one would make the mistake of legalising them. Drug legalisation doesn't increase the quality of healthcare either, and the medical consequences of drug usage are already known, so this argument is totally incorrect.

I didn't say drug problems would vanish, i said problems with designer drugs and research chemicals being taken on a large scale due to the unavailabilty of the traditional drugs, despite the lack of information on the side-effects, contraindictions and treatments for problems caused by these new drugs.

I never said legalization would improve quality of healthcare, i said it would provide healthcare providers with more certainty in how to treat their patients, traditional drugs are incredibly well studied, research chemicals are not. The medical consequences of the vast majority of legal recreational drugs are completely unknown, because they're completely untested, because they're extremely new.

That's just an assumption. There's no reason to suspect drug dealers will care any more than they do now if there's regulations. Your argument is self-defeating: if legalisation fixes it, how come there were drug problems in the first place that lead to them being banned?

Plus that the number of addicts, and thus the number of overdoses increases when something becomes more easily available, so this argument of yours is also demonstrably untrue.

Ok, i should have worded that slightly better. The number of OD's caused by unknown purity and accidental overdoses would fall.

Whether drug dealers would care about regulations or not is beside the point, either they follow regulations or they get arrested and a company who will follow regulations take their place. It's called capitalism. It's not a strange concept.

No, they'd just use even more and cause the same amount of problems. Also it ignores the personal losses of people who become the victims of your legalisation idea, and the healthcare expenses it incurs.

No, they wouldn't take more, that's not how people taking drugs think. When you take a drug, you take a dose that'll get you where you want to be. If maintaining an addiction is cheaper there's less incentive for theft. It's very simple. Yes, it ignores personal losses because that's completely beside the point, so why did you bring it up.

Shpongled:(+) More regulated supply, provides the government with the ability to influence the manner in which drugs are sold, deny criminal organisations complete control over the drug trade.

This has already been tried, and it failed miserably. Also there's no reason to assume organised crime won't dominate a legal drug trade.

This has been said at least five times already. Why are you ignoring it?

What the fuck is wrong with you dude? I mean, honestly, i fucking put it in caps and everything and you still managed to miss it. I'm not the one here ignoring things. YOU are, and it's clear as fucking day to anyone else reading the thread because i put it in capital letters and everything. Here, i'll say it again for you:

THE NEDERLANDS IS NOT AN APPLICABLE EXAMPLE BECAUSE THE NEDERLANDS HAS NOT LEGALIZED PRODUCTION OF CANNABIS. GROWING CANNABIS IN THE NEDERLANDS IS STILL ILLEGAL, HENCE WHY CRIMINALS IN THE NEDERLANDS ARE STILL IN CONTROL OF CANNABIS PRODUCTION.

There's plenty of reason to assume organised crime won't dominate a legal drug trade; because organised crime doesn't dominate ANY legal trade. Literally. Every single industry in the western world that is not illegal is dominated by legal organisations. There are no exceptions. The only industries that organised crime are in control of are illegal industries.

Shpongled:(+) The idea that drug use would increase drastically is not based on anything other than assumption. The closest two case examples of the reality of what would happen are the Nederlands and Portugal. Both countries have experienced an overall drop in drug use

That's not due to legalisation, but due to crime fighting and drug education. It has also been said before at least twice, so it's rather distastefull that you flame me like that, and then go repeating already refuting claims yourself.

The rest of the arguments you claimed aren't a problem at all. Drug dealers belong in prison, so do drug addicts. Shielding society from people like that is what police and prisons are for in the first place. If anything it's an argument against legalisation, because police time and prison space being spent on drug criminals mean that the illegal status of drugs is having the desired effect.

I even said whether or not drug use would increase is unknown. Not once did i say Portugal and the Nederlands are good examples of why drug-use would DEFINITELY NOT increase. I said they are real-life case examples that may point to a certain conclusion, but are very far from conclusive.

Obviously you omitted that part of my post though.

If you honestly believe a drug addict belongs in prison purely on the basis that he is addicted to a drug then i don't know what to say to you. All i can really say to that is personally i believe we as independent human beings should have the right to do to our own bodies as we wish, i don't believe the Government has the right to control what i do to my body up until the point where i infringe upon another persons rights.

I accept that this is just a personal opinion though. You're perfectly entitled to hold the opinion that you or anyone else should have the right to decide what i or any other stranger does with their own body. All i can do is point out that Governments and individuals in positions of power in the past that have shared your opinions on this issue don't have a particularly good track record, to put it lightly.

Shpongled:Also just btw, ketamine is not a common cut for coke at all. The effects of the drugs are widely different, ketamine is popular enough to sell itself, and it's not particularly cheap either.

You say that like it's something I didn't already know for years, why? I am however seeing drug tests coming back for cocaine cut with ketamine, and the combination is a killer. If someone takes that, they go to hospital, simple as that.

That's just one of the many reasons why it is impossible to responsibly use cocaine, and that point still stands rock-solid, no matter how many personal insults you want to fling at it.

Note how I also refuted every single point you made, while you continue to just ignore my arguments.

I actually find it extremely insulting that YOU accuse ME of ignoring your arguments. I haven't ignored any of your arguments at all, I've actually gone to lengths not to ignore any of your points here but instead to refute them. Something which you clearly don't bother with. You just find some parts of someones post you can make a point against, quote mine a specific line or two and ignore the rest of the post that specifically addresses the drivel you're about to type.

I'm not going to bother replying to your next post if you choose to post in this thread again. You're a horrible person to discuss anything with, you refuse to acknowledge anything anyone says, even when you're clearly, demonstrably and utterly wrong. Time and time again, discussions with you are like pissing in the wind.

Shpongled:Drug users at an addiction clinic are about as representative of drug users as a whole as people in a prison are representative of humans as a whole.

Damn straight. If any average human commits a crime, chances are they'll end in prison. Just like that if they use drugs, a good part of them ends up in my waiting area in the clinic. And just like people sometimes exclaim about criminals "But he'd never do that!", drug users often exclaim "But I'd never get in trouble or get addicted!"

You seem to be forgetting one thing very impotant: Drugs are addictive. Addiction is a natural consequence of drug use. You can't avoid it or cancel it out. You can only try to postpone it by your pattern of use, but as more time goes past, the chance that such a tactic fails increase to the point where addiction is a near certainty. You don't snort coke for 20 years without ending up a wreck, simple as that.

Shpongled:Yes, we've been through this. 600 drug-users committing 2/3rds of the crime. This is only damning when you refuse to consider the fact that there are far more than 600 drug-users in the city, meaning there are a huge number of drug-users that aren't committing crime.

No it's not. Their behaviour is a logical and inevitable extension of drug use as a whole. This discussion is about drug use, and why the consequences of drug use are such, that it can never be legalised. That drug users cause the vast majority of crime, is a very strong argument to not legalise.

Shpongled:I didn't say drug problems would vanish, i said problems with designer drugs and research chemicals being taken on a large scale due to the unavailabilty of the traditional drugs, despite the lack of information on the side-effects, contraindictions and treatments for problems caused by these new drugs.

However, that's just entirely untrue. People aren't pillaging laboratories and chemical plants because their dealer has been arrested. And if people are desperate enough to start using other substances if their drug of choice is unavailable, that's a problem of addiction, not a problem of drugs being unavailable.

What on earth are 'research chemicals' to begin with?

Shpongled:No, they wouldn't take more, that's not how people taking drugs think. When you take a drug, you take a dose that'll get you where you want to be.

And then the rush ends, and they want more. When it's extremely expensive they accept that they don't have any and can't. When drugs are cheap and legal, they take another shot.

That's how they use more. This is also further reinforced by the rates at which various drugs are used. For one thing you can't get pseudo-epehdrine pills here in the Netherlands without a prescription, and as a result metamphetamine is hardly ever used. Afghanistan is the epicentre of the heroin trade, and Afghans and Iranians their neighbours have skyrocketing rates of heroin use.

How easy a drug is available, strongly influences if and how much people use. As a result, legalisation would increase drug abuse and increase the number of drug victims.

Personal losses are relevant because contrary to your reasoning, it counts what people do to themselves. When I see some guy being brought in who has no more home and no more family, who's shat himself because he had a pretty good rush, who's a wreck with a life expectancy of 50-55 at most, and who prostitutes herself or gets arrested weekly, gets beat up about monthly because their interactions with drug users and dealers, then I'm not happy. I'm not happy because it's sad for them, and I wish to prevent that happening to people, by banning and combating the drugs that have destroyed their life.

If you think the legality of drugs effects anyones decision to take them your sorely mistaken and are placing far too much faith in the government.

The best thing you could want for these people is to legalise drugs and use the revenue to help them, instead of criminalizing them and sending them to prison for possession. No mixing with the criminal underworld, no harmful additives, i dont see a a downside.

Also as stated before these people are in the vast minority of drug users, and how many people have you seen brought down to a terrible state because of alcohol?

Wouldnt it be better if people could smoke weed instead of getting pissed up and violent on high streets?

Like i said i dont advocate the use of addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin but they will always exist and to combat people's problems you need understanding. Making any of these users an automatic criminal doesnt reek of understanding to me. It would be far far better if they were reliant on a legal source other than scumbag dealers with no morals. Legalisation does not mean the government is telling you its good to use cocaine. Its legal to drink bleach but you dont see a lot of people drinking it. This is why the law needs to change in my opinion.

adamsaccount:If you think the legality of drugs effects anyones decision to take them your sorely mistaken and are placing far too much faith in the government.

Can you prove that, or is it just another unlikely 'the government is teh evilz'-claim?

adamsaccount:Like i said i dont advocate the use of addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin but they will always exist and to combat people's problems you need understanding. Making any of these users an automatic criminal doesnt reek of understanding to me.

Because they're better off in a ditch as subhuman trash that only cares about the next shot, than they are getting arrested and often rehabilitated for drug use, and getting their life back, right?

The only point of view that doesn't care about anyone else is argueing for legalisation. Because with that, everybody loses except for the drug dealers.

adamsaccount:If you think the legality of drugs effects anyones decision to take them your sorely mistaken and are placing far too much faith in the government.

Can you prove that, or is it just another unlikely 'the government is teh evilz'-claim?

adamsaccount:Like i said i dont advocate the use of addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin but they will always exist and to combat people's problems you need understanding. Making any of these users an automatic criminal doesnt reek of understanding to me.

Because they're better off in a ditch as subhuman trash that only cares about the next shot, than they are getting arrested and often rehabilitated for drug use, and getting their life back, right?

The only point of view that doesn't care about anyone else is argueing for legalisation. Because with that, everybody loses except for the drug dealers.

Well I cant prove it with a study or anything like that but i can try and prove it using common sense from my own point of view. Whether youll see this as proof or not i dont know.

The harmful effects of drugs have nothing to do with the legal status.

It is the harmful side effects that cause damage and not the legal status, thus it is the harmful effect of heroin that stop people from taking it. Your assuming people are very stupid if you think the legality is the thing stopping the masses from using. I dont know. Perhaps they are but im giving them the benefit of the doubt here.

In my country drug users are often put in prison. Prison has been shown to increase criminality, and if your country is using forced rehabilitation instead of that then thats BETTER, definetely a step in the right direction, but the best step would be to have free rehabilitation clinics available to everyone, along with cleaner substances available from legal sources such as chemist shops. There comes a point with addiction when your in the ditch crying on your own with no friends or money or anything else of value and THAT is what is going to motivate you. I despise the view that its the governments business to choose your path for you.

On top of this, the revenue generated would be enormous, and would certainly be able to pay for much better rehabilitation centres. I think eventually you would see the amount of heroin addicts fall if you implemented the system i want.

To make a heroin user who isnt ready to give the drug up forcibly stop probably isnt going to work long term. The motivation has to come from the individual person and not from some government directive.

Legalising drugs would kill all the drug dealers. This is just common sense, why would you want to get something of questionable quality from a black market source when you could buy the same thing more safely and legally? By arguing for continued banning of them you are actually supporting drug dealers. I wrote a long post a couple of pages back that outlines how to do it. If an addict could get his fix from say, the health service, or a chemist along with the help he would need to get his life back on track then no money is going to drug dealers AT ALL AND you have the ability to prescribe addicts certain amounts to avoid over dosing, as well as clean needles.

However having said all this I still think the main argument lies in the freedom to think and act for yourself. But, along with this there are many pragmatic arguments that Ive stated.

adamsaccount:The harmful effects of drugs have nothing to do with the legal status.

How on earth can one say that? Those harmfull effects were the reason drugs were banned. And the reason they'll stay banned too.

adamsaccount:In my country drug users are often put in prison. Prison has been shown to increase criminality, and if your country is using forced rehabilitation instead of that then thats BETTER, definetely a step in the right direction, but the best step would be to have free rehabilitation clinics available to everyone, along with cleaner substances. There comes a point with addiction when your in the ditch crying on your own with no friends or money or anything else of value and THAT is what is going to motivate you.

You'd be amazed at how little of a motivation ending up in a ditch actually is for drug users. Addiction is a powerfull thing. They're already used to that life of using drugs and not caring about anything else. For them, waking up covered in their own shit is a sort of inconvenience that occurs every now and then, one that's quickly forgotten once the craving for the next shot sets in.

And then, the doublethink and the excuses... "But I have to work. If I don't snort cocaine I don't have the energy to get out of bed and do anything", completely ignoring the fact that they only don't have energy because of their cocaine use. Or "But I have to smoke. If I don't smoke pot I keep forgetting stuff", totally ignoring that pot is what destroyed their short term memory to begin with.

To be honest I admire the psychiatrists we have, who hear that sort of rubbish all day and don't either get depressed from the stupidy, or resort to slapping people over the head untill they see the flaws in their 'addict reasoning'.

adamsaccount:To make a heroin user who isnt ready to give the drug up forcibly stop probably isnt going to work long term. The motivation has to come from the individual person and not from some government directive.

But you can't motivate an addict. The addiction largely overrides other concerns that are supposed to motivate them. The fear of withdrawal and the craving the drug keeps them trying it.

So you put them in a cell and wait for that to be over. After that you have a person whose mind isn't clouded by an addiction, and you can work on making the rehab they just underwent a permanent thing. That's also why rehab programs far away are such a succes, because you physically remove the addict from the drugs and deny them any acces to it. They may crave and break instantly and want drugs again, but they can't. Here's an example of such a place. A bit short, but the other videos were either pay-per-view or advertising by such clinics themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGagfdYhrs0

For one thing, not forcibly removing someone from their background of drug use, with drug users and dealers as 'friends', has been shown to be an almost certain failure when it comes to trying to get people to stop their addiction. You get the kind of people we treat a lot; they just keep using, pretending to want to stop, and take methadone and a ton of other medications with which they replace only a part of their drug use. That's a proces that can drag on for years. Better to intervene decisively on their behalf and make it a succes instead I'd say.

adamsaccount:The harmful effects of drugs have nothing to do with the legal status.

How on earth can one say that? Those harmfull effects were the reason drugs were banned. And the reason they'll stay banned too.

adamsaccount:In my country drug users are often put in prison. Prison has been shown to increase criminality, and if your country is using forced rehabilitation instead of that then thats BETTER, definetely a step in the right direction, but the best step would be to have free rehabilitation clinics available to everyone, along with cleaner substances. There comes a point with addiction when your in the ditch crying on your own with no friends or money or anything else of value and THAT is what is going to motivate you.

You'd be amazed at how little of a motivation ending up in a ditch actually is for drug users. Addiction is a powerfull thing. They're already used to that life of using drugs and not caring about anything else. For them, waking up covered in their own shit is a sort of inconvenience that occurs every now and then, one that's quickly forgotten once the craving for the next shot sets in.

And then, the doublethink and the excuses... "But I have to work. If I don't snort cocaine I don't have the energy to get out of bed and do anything", completely ignoring the fact that they only don't have energy because of their cocaine use. Or "But I have to smoke. If I don't smoke pot I keep forgetting stuff", totally ignoring that pot is what destroyed their short term memory to begin with.

To be honest I admire the psychiatrists we have, who hear that sort of rubbish all day and don't either get depressed from the stupidy, or resort to slapping people over the head untill they see the flaws in their 'addict reasoning'.

adamsaccount:To make a heroin user who isnt ready to give the drug up forcibly stop probably isnt going to work long term. The motivation has to come from the individual person and not from some government directive.

But you can't motivate an addict. The addiction largely overrides other concerns that are supposed to motivate them. The fear of withdrawal and the craving the drug keeps them trying it.

So you put them in a cell and wait for that to be over. After that you have a person whose mind isn't clouded by an addiction, and you can work on making the rehab they just underwent a permanent thing. That's also why rehab programs far away are such a succes, because you physically remove the addict from the drugs and deny them any acces to it. They may crave and break instantly and want drugs again, but they can't. Here's an example of such a place. A bit short, but the other videos were either pay-per-view or advertising by such clinics themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGagfdYhrs0

For one thing, not forcibly removing someone from their background of drug use, with drug users and dealers as 'friends', has been shown to be an almost certain failure when it comes to trying to get people to stop their addiction. You get the kind of people we treat a lot; they just keep using, pretending to want to stop, and take methadone and a ton of other medications with which they replace only a part of their drug use. That's a proces that can drag on for years. Better to intervene decisively on their behalf and make it a succes instead I'd say.

What i meant there at the top there is that its not the act of breaking the law that causes the harm to your body.

Thinking about it i actually agree that if someone is a heroin addict and is breaking the law to fuel their habit in other ways such as stealing or mugging then forced rehab is a good idea instead of prison. However if your only transgression is taking heroin then i see no reason to deprive someone of their freedom.

Why dont we ban obesity if its the governments job to make people healthy?

And if you dont think drugs will ever be legal look at the USA, 2 states have legalised weed now with others having it available medicinally.

There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty. But of course, the, "We are allowed to put everything else--pretty much--into our own bodies, so why not this?" is a pretty compelling one.

You want to do whatever you want to your body? Sure, but if things take a turn for the worst then you shouldn't be allowed to go to a hospital if you don't have insurance and you should be prevented from receiving any medical benefits that are payed for with my tax dollars.

Blablahb:You're seriously denying there are problems because of drugs? Now I'm thinking you're just pretending ignorance. There's no way that we're from the same planet and you've managed to miss the problems caused by drugs.

Tenfold? Where's your source for that?Did you even read the MDMA article yourself? I can't honestly believe you did considering it shows that the short term side affects of MDMA are the same as alcohol and the long term side effects pretty much non-existant.None of this disproves the much more highly destructive side affects of prohibition.

"Three major studies followed large numbers of people over several years, and showed that those people who use cannabis have a higher than average risk of developing schizophrenia. If you start smoking it before the age of 15, you are 4 times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder by the time you are 26. They found no evidence of self-medication. It seemed that, the more cannabis someone used, the more likely they were to develop symptoms."http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/expertadvice/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

The mistake you make is to dismiss it based on one or two small incomplete studies that concluded that that cannabis seems to cause mental illness in people with a family history and thus a possible predisposition for it. However it's still the trigger, and still the cause. Without drug abuse, those people wouldn't have lost it.

Notice how the number of documented points for me vs unsupported claims for you is now 3 already in just one post?

Lol, the fact you consider wikipedia a source speaks volumes about you.And yet again, you expect me to trawl through your "sources" and find the scientific study that is actually applicable to what you're saying (if it's actually even in there). I suppose it is better than expecting me to learn a second language to read your sources, still intentionally awkward though.Yes there is an unproved correlation between psychiatric disorders and marijuana use (remember that correlation is not the same as causation, I believe it even say's that in one of your "sources.") But as it even says in your "source" none of these studies have been particularly reliable or rigorous and many of them are studies that have been done on teenagers (mostly in the 15-16 year old bracket).Considering I advocate responsible drug use (aka, drug use by adults that is not excessive) this, again, is mostly irrelevant.Try to be less sensationalist, I realise it's probably all you know but at least try.

Blablahb:No shit? Who'd have expected that a group which is a thousand times more numerous would create more cases?

Now the number of addicts per user, alright? Because that's the only comparable number. Also you're ignoring the fact that moderate alcohol use without risk of medical problems is possible, and drug use without risk of medical problems is impossible.

This one actually made me laugh, it's as if you think alcohol isn't a drug or something.In any case that part in bold is again, so incredibly obviously wrong that it discredits everything you say. It is sensationalist.

Blablahb:Alright, so show us all that evidence instead of just making more and more empty claims while I'm levelling them one by one?

Don't make the mistake of using uncomparable data. Only data that have been compensated to be per-use and per-user can be compared. To my knowledge no such data exists.

If you had made even one honest attempt to educate yourself, rather than re-enforce your bigotry then you would have seen the evidence.

Also it's time for you to stop stubbornly repeating the already refuted claim that legalisation will undercut organised crime. The failed Dutch experiment has proven this isn't true, and there's no reason to suspect it would work like you claim in the first place.

Seen as I have already answered this one several times, I'll just let you re-read my older posts.

Blablahb:Uhm, actually quite a few. Taxi companies for instance have been known to engage in mafia-like practises to settle disputes and violence is so common that taxi stops have a police officer permanently stationed at them, and are often equippped with boom barriers so offenders can't flee. Biker gangs, legal in themselves, are another fine example of a violent bunch that's not illegal by itself. Biker gangs have been legal for a while too, yet has this legalisation made them lose their criminal tendencies? No. Neither will the drug trade.

Once a branch of industry is accustomed to violence, it's extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of.

Biker gang is a term that refers to a violent/criminal motorcycle club. That's like saying "did you know that murderers are almost always criminals."And again, the vast majority of taxi firms work within the law, your own example undermines your argument.

Blablahb:That's downright hypocritical, as you're yet to provide the first-ever source for your claims. Also please read my previous posts. You've clearly misunderstood the causal relationship between drug use and crime which I described earlier.

I provided you a link to google scholar, which is a source on the same level as what you have been providing.Still, if our standards for sources are that low have this as a source then.

At least my source is entertaining

While your bigotry and willful ignorance was entertaining at first, I grow tired of it. You're going to have to come up with a compelling and rational argument for drug prohibition if you want me to humour you again.None of this sensationalist, copy and pasted from Fox News crap.

There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty. But of course, the, "We are allowed to put everything else--pretty much--into our own bodies, so why not this?" is a pretty compelling one.

You want to do whatever you want to your body? Sure, but if things take a turn for the worst then you shouldn't be allowed to go to a hospital if you don't have insurance and you should be prevented from receiving any medical benefits that are payed for with my tax dollars.

Keep in mind that also means you should deny treatment to those who eat too many unhealthy foods.

There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty. But of course, the, "We are allowed to put everything else--pretty much--into our own bodies, so why not this?" is a pretty compelling one.

You want to do whatever you want to your body? Sure, but if things take a turn for the worst then you shouldn't be allowed to go to a hospital if you don't have insurance and you should be prevented from receiving any medical benefits that are payed for with my tax dollars.

*shivers*

I would hate to live in a society like that, along with anyone else who is sane.

There doesn't need to be an argument other than individual liberty. But of course, the, "We are allowed to put everything else--pretty much--into our own bodies, so why not this?" is a pretty compelling one.

You want to do whatever you want to your body? Sure, but if things take a turn for the worst then you shouldn't be allowed to go to a hospital if you don't have insurance and you should be prevented from receiving any medical benefits that are payed for with my tax dollars.

*shivers*

I would hate to live in a society like that, along with anyone else who is sane.

Why? It's reasonable enough. It's pretty much how things work now, too. For example, in the US, we have the 'six month rule'. Say you need to get a liver transplant due to ruining it through alcoholism, or else you'll die. You have to be sober for six months before they'll let you have the transplant. If you die before the six months are up, whoops. Middle finger to you. Up to 80% of people on the waiting list die because of the six month rule. But hey, people keep drinking in spite of the risks, so they deserve what they get.

Helmholtz Watson:You want to do whatever you want to your body? Sure, but if things take a turn for the worst then you shouldn't be allowed to go to a hospital if you don't have insurance and you should be prevented from receiving any medical benefits that are payed for with my tax dollars.

*shivers*

I would hate to live in a society like that, along with anyone else who is sane.

Why? It's reasonable enough. It's pretty much how things work now, too. For example, in the US, we have the 'six month rule'. Say you need to get a liver transplant due to ruining it through alcoholism, or else you'll die. You have to be sober for six months before they'll let you have the transplant. If you die before the six months are up, whoops. Middle finger to you. Up to 80% of people on the waiting list die because of the six month rule. But hey, people keep drinking in spite of the risks, so they deserve what they get.

Pretty sure the rule is there more because alcoholics are like to continue drinking and destroy the replacement liver than as a nice little "fuck you" to drinkers, it's a pragmatic reason, not just something to make a none-drnker feel better.

Anyway, that's all well and good for things like organ transplants, but how far do we extend it? If drug users are a given, i guess smokers and over-eater are too? Ok, how about skateboarders and mountain climbers? Deny them healthcare because they knew the risks? Motorbikers? They could have just used a car... People going out sailing for fun? The sea is a risky place.. How far exactly do you want this to go? Do we start recording the amount of exersize people get and denying healthcare to anyone at less than an hour a day?

You have to accept that pretty much anything we as human beings do has the potential to lead us to harm. If you want to deny healthcare to drug users because they knowingly do something dangerous, you kinda have to apply that logic consistently and fairly, which you're going to find pretty fucking difficult to do once it comes down to it.

Bear in mind more people in the UK injure themselves through horse-riding every year than through taking MDMA.

I would hate to live in a society like that, along with anyone else who is sane.

Why? It's reasonable enough. It's pretty much how things work now, too. For example, in the US, we have the 'six month rule'. Say you need to get a liver transplant due to ruining it through alcoholism, or else you'll die. You have to be sober for six months before they'll let you have the transplant. If you die before the six months are up, whoops. Middle finger to you. Up to 80% of people on the waiting list die because of the six month rule. But hey, people keep drinking in spite of the risks, so they deserve what they get.

Pretty sure the rule is there more because alcoholics are like to continue drinking and destroy the replacement liver than as a nice little "fuck you" to drinkers, it's a pragmatic reason, not just something to make a none-drnker feel better.

Anyway, that's all well and good for things like organ transplants, but how far do we extend it? If drug users are a given, i guess smokers and over-eater are too? Ok, how about skateboarders and mountain climbers? Deny them healthcare because they knew the risks? Motorbikers? They could have just used a car... People going out sailing for fun? The sea is a risky place.. How far exactly do you want this to go? Do we start recording the amount of exersize people get and denying healthcare to anyone at less than an hour a day?

You have to accept that pretty much anything we as human beings do has the potential to lead us to harm. If you want to deny healthcare to drug users because they knowingly do something dangerous, you kinda have to apply that logic consistently and fairly, which you're going to find pretty fucking difficult to do once it comes down to it.

Bear in mind more people in the UK injure themselves through horse-riding every year than through taking MDMA.

False dichotomy. Alcohol and Cocaine, to name two examples, can do nothing but damage the body. If you partake of them, your body will be damaged. There are no alternative results.

It's a very easy line to draw. If you take part of an act that you know can and will do permanent harm to your body or mind, then you should be denied medical care for anything relating to the act. Sure, you could fall on a jetski and end up being seriously injured as a result. I doubt anyone hops on the jetski with the knowledge that that'll happen to them, it's just an unfortunate consequence. Similar to how it's actually possible for you to break your neck just by sneezing.

Obesity (If not the result of a medical condition) and smokers do fall under 'should be denied care', yes. If you choose not to take care of your body, there should be no surprise that it fails on you, nor should people who do take their own health seriously have to pay for your idiocy.

Edit: Going a bit more indepth, motorcycles, mountain climbers, and the like would only fall under 'should be denied care' if they don't take proper precautions. IE, mountain climbers who free-climb and cyclists who go without protective gear.

To reiterate, if you don't wear a helmet or pads on a motorcycle, and you get in an accident, the insurance company shouldn't pay a dime. Life insurance doesn't pay out if the policy holder commits suicide. Why should normal insurance pay if the policy holder engages in unsafe practices?

Shpongled:Bear in mind more people in the UK injure themselves through horse-riding every year than through taking MDMA.

A meaningless statistic. You might as well compare auto deaths to MDMA deaths to prove how 'safe' it is.

On topic, can't say I agree with the DP verdict. Opposed to the DP, hope she gets her sentence reduced to time. As for drugs, can't say I'm for legalization. I've seen first hand how recreational drugs can quickly ruin someones life, addiction is a scary thing.

Shpongled:Bear in mind more people in the UK injure themselves through horse-riding every year than through taking MDMA.

A meaningless statistic. You might as well compare auto deaths to MDMA deaths to prove how 'safe' it is.

On topic, can't say I agree with the DP verdict. Opposed to the DP, hope she gets her sentence reduced to time. As for drugs, can't say I'm for legalization. I've seen first hand how recreational drugs can quickly ruin someones life, addiction is a scary thing.

I didn't point out the statistic to prove how "safe" anything is, i pointed it out because it shows more people need healthcare per year because of horse-riding than MDMA. Meaning denying people healthcare because they took MDMA and not because they went horse-riding is unjust.

Just fyi though, there are a comparable number of users of MDMA than there are of horse-riders.

Why? It's reasonable enough. It's pretty much how things work now, too. For example, in the US, we have the 'six month rule'. Say you need to get a liver transplant due to ruining it through alcoholism, or else you'll die. You have to be sober for six months before they'll let you have the transplant. If you die before the six months are up, whoops. Middle finger to you. Up to 80% of people on the waiting list die because of the six month rule. But hey, people keep drinking in spite of the risks, so they deserve what they get.

Pretty sure the rule is there more because alcoholics are like to continue drinking and destroy the replacement liver than as a nice little "fuck you" to drinkers, it's a pragmatic reason, not just something to make a none-drnker feel better.

Anyway, that's all well and good for things like organ transplants, but how far do we extend it? If drug users are a given, i guess smokers and over-eater are too? Ok, how about skateboarders and mountain climbers? Deny them healthcare because they knew the risks? Motorbikers? They could have just used a car... People going out sailing for fun? The sea is a risky place.. How far exactly do you want this to go? Do we start recording the amount of exersize people get and denying healthcare to anyone at less than an hour a day?

You have to accept that pretty much anything we as human beings do has the potential to lead us to harm. If you want to deny healthcare to drug users because they knowingly do something dangerous, you kinda have to apply that logic consistently and fairly, which you're going to find pretty fucking difficult to do once it comes down to it.

Bear in mind more people in the UK injure themselves through horse-riding every year than through taking MDMA.

False dichotomy. Alcohol and Cocaine, to name two examples, can do nothing but damage the body. If you partake of them, your body will be damaged. There are no alternative results.

It's a very easy line to draw. If you take part of an act that you know can and will do permanent harm to your body or mind, then you should be denied medical care for anything relating to the act. Sure, you could fall on a jetski and end up being seriously injured as a result. I doubt anyone hops on the jetski with the knowledge that that'll happen to them, it's just an unfortunate consequence. Similar to how it's actually possible for you to break your neck just by sneezing.

Obesity (If not the result of a medical condition) and smokers do fall under 'should be denied care', yes. If you choose not to take care of your body, there should be no surprise that it fails on you, nor should people who do take their own health seriously have to pay for your idiocy.

Edit: Going a bit more indepth, motorcycles, mountain climbers, and the like would only fall under 'should be denied care' if they don't take proper precautions. IE, mountain climbers who free-climb and cyclists who go without protective gear.

To reiterate, if you don't wear a helmet or pads on a motorcycle, and you get in an accident, the insurance company shouldn't pay a dime. Life insurance doesn't pay out if the policy holder commits suicide. Why should normal insurance pay if the policy holder engages in unsafe practices?

You do know it's perfectly possible to use most drugs without any risk of foreseeable harm whatsoever, yes? Most drugs cause no harm whatsoever when used sparingly and at sensible doses. The idea that drugs always cause harm is completely and utterly wrong. Cocaine is really one of the only commonly used recreational drugs where a risk of permanent damage exists at reasonable doses when used sparingly. The opiates are generally fairly safe drugs at reasonable doses used sparingly, obviously the problem with them is addiction, making it difficult to use sparingly. But as for the likes of the LSD, MDMA, mushrooms, mescaline etc, those are among the safest drugs known, far safer than many medications sold in your local pharmacy.

The idea that someone who takes a reasonable dose of MDMA and has an unforeseen bad reaction should be denied healthcare whereas someone who spends their life riding a motorcycle shouldn't seems completely illogical and unfair. Neither is any more necessary than the other, both carry obvious risks, both are taking every precaution to avoid harm, yet one should die and the other should not? Of course i feel this way about anyone who pays their taxes being denied healthcare to be honest.